OUGD406 // Stamp It // Outline Illustration

I wanted my illustrations to be clean cut outlines similar to the style of one of favourite designers, Michael Craig-Martin. I think that the cleanness and vibrant colours used in his work would work perfectly on a small stamp. The designs are clear to see and would work really well for what i wanted to do.   Here is some of his work...

Illustrations including Shoes...

Other styles of illustration - Shoes. 

Poster i found someone had done for nike in a similar style to MCM

i also came across this vans shoe box design. I love the illustration on this also, something i will look at when experimenting with illustrating my shoes. Not entirely sure what style i'll be going for yet.

Check it out here...  http://www.behance.net/gallery/Vans-Shoebox-Packaging/2901041

Love these illustrations for nike. Something different. 

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Nike-Sportwear-T-shirts/2281222

Fubu / Reebok Illustrations

http://www.behance.net/gallery/FUBU-x-123KLAN/1330791

OUGD406 // Stamp It // Walk to Work // Workplace Footwear Research

I came across some things for 'Walk To Work'. So i thought this may be an interesting thing to focus on fo rthe designs of my stamps. I thought it would be better than just sticking to your bog standard recycling campaigns and may be more interesting for people to see on a stamp and actually want to do it.

here is some research and imagery i found on 'Walk To Work'...

I found that a few businesses and organisations have tried a 'walk to work' day so maybe i can link this into my idea. Most of the design for ideas like this i have come across is pretty bad. I do like the first logo of the man though, but i was thinking i may focus on footwear. Workplace Footwear.

I found this online and realised that the British Walk to Work official Week this year will be on the 14-18 May. I was thinking i could link in my stamps to this by creating a et of stamps for the week and also promotional material...

Walk to Work Week 2012 will be taking place on the 14 to 18 May 2012 as part of theGreat British Walking Challenge.

Make sure that you join the thousands of employees across the UK who will be walking to, from and during work as part of one of the healthiest workplace challenges around. You can sign up your workplace for free on our My Living Streets website; where you and your colleagues will be able to log your miles, minutes and steps walked and see individual as well as collective totals of miles walked, calories burnt and potential carbon dioxide savings.

We'll be sending out more information over the coming months in the run up to the challenge so make sure you keep checking back or keep up to date with our eBulletin.

 As i decided to go down the route of illustrating different footwear from different workplaces, i did some more research into this. I needed at least six easily recognisable kinds of shoe that you would instantly relate to a job. Here is some research i did into that to try and match the shoes with the jobs...

Caterpillar Boots - Builders 

Brogues - Business Men

Stilettos - Business Women 

Wellies - Farming

Running Shoes - Sports 

Converse - Laidback / Creative

Desert boots / Laidback Proffesional

OUGD406 // Energy Conservation / Sustainable Transport Inforgraphics

I have just been looking at some infographics on both subjects to try and get ideas of what i can include in my stamps...

Don't particularly like most of these designs but it just gives me an idea of how i can represent energy consumption...

OUGD406 // Stamp It // Imagery Research

imagery i have been looking at for energy conservation and sustainable transport. These are the two that a re standing out the most for me to focus my stamps on..

Energy House diagram 

experiment with infared?

Thermostats

car share 

OUGD406 // Stamp It // Reducing Methods Further Research

Looking at the brief i have research innovative ways of how to reduce, reuse then recycle. I have looked further at some of the things the brief mentioned...

Energy Conservation 

Energy conservation refers to efforts made to reduce energy consumption. Energy conservation can be achieved through increasedefficient energy use, in conjunction with decreased energy consumption and/or reduced consumption from conventional energy sources. An energy conservation act was passed in 2001.^{[clarification needed]}

Energy conservation can result in increased financial capital, environmental quality, national security, personal security, and human comfort.^{[citation needed]} Individuals and organizations that are direct consumers of energy choose to conserve energy to reduce energy costs and promote economic security. Industrial and commercial users can increase energy use efficiency to maximize profit.

Source - Wikipedia 

Ways to Conserve Engery

Whenever you save energy, you not only save money, you also reduce the demand for such fossil fuels as coal, oil, and natural gas. Less burning of fossil fuels also means lower emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the primary contributor to global warming, and other pollutants.
You do not have to do without to achieve these savings. There is now an energy efficient alternative for almost every kind of appliance or light fixture. That means that consumers have a real choice and the power to change their energy use on a revolutionary scale.
The average American produces about 40,000 pounds of CO2 emissions per year. Together, we use nearly a million dollars worth of energy every minute, night and day, every day of the year. By exercising even a few of the following steps, you can cut your annual emissions by thousands of pounds and your energy bills by a significant amount!

Home appliances

Turn your refrigerator down. Refrigerators account for about 20% of Household electricity use. Use a thermometer to set your refrigerator temperature as close to 37 degrees and your freezer as close to 3 degrees as possible. Make sure that its energy saver switch is turned on. Also, check the gaskets around your refrigerator/freezer doors to make sure they are clean and sealed tightly.


Set your clothes washer to the warm or cold water setting, not hot. Switching from hot to warm for two loads per week can save nearly 500 pounds of CO2 per year if you have an electric water heater, or 150 pounds for a gas heater.


Make sure your dishwasher is full when you run it and use the energy saving setting, if available, to allow the dishes to air dry. You can also turn off the drying cycle manually. Not using heat in the drying cycle can save 20 percent of your dishwasher's total electricity use.


Turn down your water heater thermostat. Thermostats are often set to 140 degrees F when 120 is usually fine. Each 10 degree reduction saves 600 pounds of CO2 per year for an electric water heater, or 440 pounds for a gas heater. If every household turned its water heater thermostat down 20 degrees, we could prevent more than 45 million tons of annual CO2 emissions - the same amount emitted by the entire nations of Kuwait or Libya.


Select the most energy-efficient models when you replace your old appliances. Look for the Energy Star Label - your assurance that the product saves energy and prevents pollution. Buy the product that is sized to your typical needs - not the biggest one available. Front loading washing machines will usually cut hot water use by 60 to 70% compared to typical machines. Replacing a typical 1973 refrigerator with a new energy-efficient model, saves 1.4 tons of CO2 per year. Investing in a solar water heater can save 4.9 tons of CO2 annually.


Home Heating and Cooling


Be careful not to overheat or overcool rooms. In the winter, set your thermostat at 68 degrees in daytime, and 55 degrees at night. In the summer, keep it at 78. Lowering your thermostat just two degrees during winter saves 6 percent of heating-related CO2 emissions. That's a reduction of 420 pounds of CO2 per year for a typical home.


Clean or replace air filters as recommended. Energy is lost when air conditioners and hot-air furnaces have to work harder to draw air through dirty filters. Cleaning a dirty air conditioner filter can save 5 percent of the energy used. That could save 175 pounds of CO2 per year.


Small investments that pay off


Buy energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs for your most-used lights. Although they cost more initially, they save money in the long run by using only 1/4 the energy of an ordinary incandescent bulb and lasting 8-12 times longer. They provide an equivalent amount of bright, attractive light. Only 10% of the energy consumed by a normal light bulb generates light. The rest just makes the bulb hot. If every American household replaced one of its standard light bulbs with an energy efficient compact fluorescent bulb, we would save the same amount of energy as a large nuclear power plant produces in one year. In a typical home, one compact fluorescent bulb can save 260 pounds of CO2 per year.


Wrap your water heater in an insulating jacket, which costs just $10 to $20. It can save 1100 lbs. of CO2 per year for an electric water heater, or 220 pounds for a gas heater.





Use less hot water by installing low-flow shower heads. They cost just $10 to $20 each, deliver an invigorating shower, and save 300 pounds of CO2 per year for electrically heated water, or 80 pounds for gas-heated water.





Weatherize your home or apartment, using caulk and weather stripping to plug air leaks around doors and windows. Caulking costs less than $1 per window, and weather stripping is under $10 per door. These steps can save up to 1100 pounds of CO2 per year for a typical home. Ask your utility company for a home energy audit to find out where your home is poorly insulated or energy inefficient. This service may be provided free or at low cost. Make sure it includes a check of your furnace and air conditioning.


Getting around

Whenever possible, walk, bike, car pool, or use mass transit. Every gallon of gasoline you save avoids 22 pounds of CO2 emissions. If your car gets 25 miles per gallon, for example, and you reduce your annual driving from 12,000 to 10,000 miles, you'll save 1800 pounds of CO2.





When you next buy a car, choose one that gets good mileage. If your new car gets 40 miles per gallon instead of 25, and you drive 10,000 miles per year, you'll reduce your annual CO2 emissions by 3,300 pounds.


Reduce, reuse, recycle


Reduce the amount of waste you produce by buying minimally packaged goods, choosing reusable products over disposable ones, and recycling. For every pound of waste you eliminate or recycle, you save energy and reduce emissions of CO2 by at least 1 pound. Cutting down your garbage by half of one large trash bag per week saves at least 1100 pounds of CO2 per year. Making products with recycled materials, instead of from scratch with raw materials, uses 30 to 55% less for paper products, 33% less for glass, and a whopping 90% less for aluminum.





If your car has an air conditioner, make sure its coolant is recovered and recycled whenever you have it serviced. In the United States, leakage from auto air conditioners is the largest single source of emissions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which damage the ozone layer as well as add to global warming. The CFCs from one auto air conditioner can add the equivalent of 4800 pounds of CO2 emissions per year.


Home Improvements.

When you plan major home improvements, consider some of these energy saving investments. They save money in the long run, and their CO2 savings can often be measured in tons per year. 

Insulate your walls and ceilings. This can save 20 to 30 percent of home heating bills and reduce CO2 emissions by 140 to 2100 pounds per year. If you live in a colder climate, consider superinsulating. That can save 5.5 tons of CO2 per year for gas-heated homes, 8.8 tons per year for oil heat, or 23 tons per year for electric heat. (If you have electric heat, you might also consider switching to more efficient gas or oil.)




Modernize your windows. Replacing all your ordinary windows with argon filled, double-glazed windows saves 2.4 tons of CO2 per year for homes with gas heat, 3.9 tons of oil heat, and 9.8 tons for electric heat.


Plant shade trees and paint your house a light color if you live in a warm climate, or a dark color if you live in a cold climate. Reductions in energy use resulting from shade trees and appropriate painting can save up to 2.4 tons of CO2 emissions per year. (Each tree also directly absorbs about 25 pounds of CO2 from the air annually.)


Business and community


Work with your employer to implement these and other energy-efficiency and waste-reduction measures in your office or workplace. Form or join local citizens' groups and work with local government officials to see that these measures are taken in schools and public buildings.





Keep track of the environmental voting records of candidates for office. Stay abreast of environmental issues on both local and national levels, and write or call your elected officials to express your concerns about energy efficiency and global warming.


Sustainable Transport  

Sustainable transport (or green transport) refers to any means of transport with low impact on the environment, and includeswalking and cycling, transit oriented development, green vehicles, CarSharing, and building or protecting urban transport systems that are fuel-efficient, space-saving and promote healthy lifestyles.

Sustainable transport systems make a positive contribution to the environmental, social and economic sustainability of the communities they serve. Transport systems exist to provide social and economic connections, and people quickly take up the opportunities offered by increased mobility.^[1] The advantages of increased mobility need to be weighed against the environmental, social and economic costs that transport systems pose.

Transport systems have significant impacts on the environment, accounting for between 20% and 25% of world energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.^[2] Greenhouse gas emissions from transport are increasing at a faster rate than any other energy using sector.^[3] Road transport is also a major contributor to local air pollution and smog.^[4]

The social costs of transport include road crashes, air pollution, physical inactivity,^[5] time taken away from the family whilecommuting and vulnerability to fuel price increases. Many of these negative impacts fall disproportionately on those social groups who are also least likely to own and drive cars.^[6] Traffic congestion imposes economic costs by wasting people's time and by slowing the delivery of goods and services.

Traditional transport planning aims to improve mobility, especially for vehicles, and may fail to adequately consider wider impacts. But the real purpose of transport is access - to work, education, goods and services, friends and family - and there are proven techniques to improve access while simultaneously reducing environmental and social impacts, and managing traffic congestion.^[7] Communities which are successfully improving the sustainability of their transport networks are doing so as part of a wider programme of creating more vibrant, livable, sustainable cities.

Source - Wikipedia

What can you do?

There are a number of ways that we can make our use of transport more sustainable:

• Car sharing - reducing the number of single occupant journeys can have a huge impact on pollution and congestion
• Travel plans - When businesses, schools and other organisations create a travel plan, they can make a real difference to the transport choice their employees and visitors make
• Walking buses - A walking bus scheme can benefit children, parents, the school and the local community
• Reduce carbon dioxide emissions - how we use our cars, and the type of cars we decide to buy, can affect our own carbon dioxide emissions.

Zero-Carbon Housing

The UK Government has set out an ambitious plan for all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016. The Zero Carbon Hub is here to help you understand the challenges, issues and opportunities involved in developing, building and marketing your low and zero carbon homes.

A zero-energy building, also known as a zero net energy (ZNE) building, Net-Zero Energy Building (NZEB), or Net Zero Building, is a popular term to describe a building with zero net energy consumption and zero carbon emissions annually.^[1] Zero energy buildings can be independent from the energy grid supply. Energy can be harvested on-site—usually through a combination of energy producing technologies like Solar and Wind—while reducing the overall use of energy with extremely efficient HVAC and Lighting technologies. The zero-energy design principle is becoming more practical to adopt due to the increasing costs of traditional fossil fuels and their negative impact on the planet's climate and ecological balance.

The zero net energy consumption principle is gaining considerable interest as renewable energy harvesting is a means to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Traditional building consumes 40% of the total fossil energy in the US and European Union.^[2][3]

Source - Wikipedia

OUGD406 // Stamp It // Reduce, Re-use, Recycle Research

so as the stamps have to get to the british public to redice waste, reduce and recycle, i have decided to do some basic research into these steps to help gain a better understanding and to also find influence of ideas etc i can use for the stamps...

http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/facts.html

Recycling Facts and Figures...

UK households produced 30.5 million tonnes of waste in 2003/04, of which 17% was collected for recycling (source: defra.gov.uk). This figure is still quite low compared to some of our neighbouring EU countries, some recycling over 50% of their waste. There is still a great deal of waste which could be recycled that ends up in landfill sites which is harmful to the environment.

Recycling is an excellent way of saving energy and conserving the environment. Did you know that:

• 1 recycled tin can would save enough energy to power a television for 3 hours.
• 1 recycled glass bottle would save enough energy to power a computer for 25 minutes.
• 1 recycled plastic bottle would save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for 3 hours.
• 70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared with making it from raw materials.

Some Interesting Facts

• Up to 60% of the rubbish that ends up in the dustbin could be recycled.
• The unreleased energy contained in the average dustbin each year could power a television for 5,000 hours.
• The largest lake in the Britain could be filled with rubbish from the UK in 8 months.
• On average, 16% of the money you spend on a product pays for the packaging, which ultimately ends up as rubbish.
• As much as 50% of waste in the average dustbin could be composted.
• Up to 80% of a vehicle can be recycled.
• 9 out of 10 people would recycle more if it were made easier.

Aluminium

• 24 million tonnes of aluminium is produced annually, 51,000 tonnes of which ends up as packaging in the UK.
• If all cans in the UK were recycled, we would need 14 million fewer dustbins.
• £36,000,000 worth of aluminium is thrown away each year.
• Aluminium cans can be recycled and ready to use in just 6 weeks.

Glass

• Each UK family uses an average of 500 glass bottles and jars annually.
• The largest glass furnace produces over 1 million glass bottles and jars per day.
• Glass is 100% recyclable and can be used again and again.
• Glass that is thrown away and ends up in landfills will never decompose.

Paper

• Recycled paper produces 73% less air pollution than if it was made from raw materials.
• 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard are used annually in the UK.
• The average person in the UK gets through 38kg of newspapers per year.
• It takes 24 trees to make 1 ton of newspaper.

Plastic

• 275,000 tonnes of plastic are used each year in the UK, that’s about 15 million bottles per day.
• Most families throw away about 40kg of plastic per year, which could otherwise be recycled.
• The use of plastic in Western Europe is growing about 4% each year.
• Plastic can take up to 500 years to decompose.

These facts are really interesting and i could look at possibly illustrating and communnicating the facts in a way that would be noticable on a stamp, seems a good idea. 

ecycling is one of the best ways for you to have a positive impact on the world in which we live. Recycling is important to both the natural environment and us. We must act fast as the amount of waste we create is increasing all the time.

The amount of rubbish we create is constantly increasing because:

• Increasing wealth means that people are buying more products and ultimately creating more waste.
• Increasing population means that there are more people on the planet to create waste.
• New packaging and technological products are being developed, much of these products contain materials that are not biodegradable.
• New lifestyle changes, such as eating fast food, means that we create additional waste that isn’t biodegradable.

 Environmental Importance

Recycling is very important as waste has a huge negative impact on the natural environment.

• Harmful chemicals and greenhouse gasses are released from rubbish in landfill sites. Recycling helps to reduce the pollution caused by waste.
• Habitat destruction and global warming are some the affects caused by deforestation. Recycling reduces the need for raw materials so that the rainforests can be preserved.
• Huge amounts of energy are used when making products from raw materials. Recycling requires much less energy and therefore helps to preserve natural resources.

 Importance To People

Recycling is essential to cities around the world and to the people living in them.

• No space for waste. Our landfill sites are filling up fast, by 2010, almost all landfills in the UK will be full.
• Reduce financial expenditure in the economy. Making products from raw materials costs much more than if they were made from recycled products.
• Preserve natural resources for future generations. Recycling reduces the need for raw materials; it also uses less energy, therefore preserving natural resources for the future.

Just looking at some basic imagery for reduce, reuse recycle. seems to be the three green recycling arrows as a strong image running throughout what i am finding. maybe i could incorporate this somehow?

UK RECYCLING LOGO

man and trash can. strong imagery for british recycling/keeping tidy 

KEEP BRITAIN TIDY CAMPAIGN...

GREEN/WHITE COLOUR SCHEME ON THE INTERNET 

RECYLING PLASTIC - IMAGERY...

PAPER IMAGERY...

GLASS IMAGERY...

http://www.sita.co.uk/what-we-do